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Trial of Dover man delayed pending lab test for date rape drug

By JAMES A. KIMBLEUnion Leader Correspondent

BRENTWOOD -; A woman who says she was drugged by a convicted sex offender before he sexually assaulted her friend tested positive for Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid, commonly known as a date rape drug, prosecutors said.

However, the drug did not turn up in test results for the woman who Aaron Bonds, 44, of Dover, is accused of sexually assaulting at a Portsmouth apartment last July 11, according to court records.

Prosecutors were recently allowed to delay Bonds' trial -; set to begin this month -- until the week of Sept. 30 so that a state lab worker can write an expert report to interpret the test results.

Bonds is charged with three counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and a single count of dispensing a controlled drug.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and is being held pending trial.

Prosecutors say that Bonds met up with two of the women at a Portsmouth restaurant on the night of the July 11, providing them with cocaine allegedly laced with another drug.

A third woman joined the trio at an apartment later in the night and also ingested the drug, according to police.

The 26-year-old woman was unable to move when Bonds ';approached her from behind and committed acts of sexual assault,'; Assistant County Attorney Brad Bolton said in a court motion. Prosecutors said that the woman had ';cocaine, and buphrenorphine (suboxone)'; in her system when she provided a urine sample collected at a local hospital.

The other woman who was not assaulted but ingested cocaine allegedly provided by Bonds had the GHB drug in her system. No results were disclosed regarding the third woman.

Bonds, who is being held at the Strafford County jail, was convicted in another sexual assault case in 2003. In the latest case, he could be sentenced 20 to 40 years in state prison and a $4,000 fine on each of the sexual assault charges.